


A Dying Breed

by twilightfire



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: As does Daryl, Community: queer_fest, Explicit Language, Gen, Implied Cannibalism, M/M, Merle has a dirty mouth, Minor Character Death, Pre-Series, Zombies, abandonment of a mentally incapacitated person, drug possession, implied mercy killing of a mentally incapacitated person, suspected homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-07 13:05:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightfire/pseuds/twilightfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl has always had to hide who he really is, except for a few rare occasions. That all changes when Merle bursts in with the news that the dead are walking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dying Breed

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [queer-fest](http://community.livejournal.com/queer_fest). This was a lot harder to write than I thought it would be. I’d like to give a quick thanks to [heeroluva](http://heeroluva.livejournal.com/) for looking this over. For anyone interested, a companion fic following Merle’s POV is currently in the planning stages.

Daryl doesn’t remember how old he was when he first realized that he was gay. He never really understood the point of giving Valentine’s Day cards to the girls in class, but there was always one boy that he would have happily given a card. Even when his classmates started pairing off, he found himself eying the boys more than the girls.

He never told anyone that when his brother was off chasing skirts in the local bar, he was more interested in the guys bending over playing pool. He may have been a poor redneck, but he wasn’t _stupid_.

“Hey, little brother,” Merle slurs, slumping over on Daryl’s shoulder and waving a beer in the direction of a group of coeds. “What you think about them? I’d tap that.”

Daryl glances over at them and shrugs.

“C’mon, Darlina, you can’t tell me that one of them hasn’t sparked your interest. They’re all so pretty,” Merle grins.

Daryl shoves Merle off of him. “Get offa me, you ass. I’m cutting you off.” Merle would be fit to kill once he was sober and realized that he’d inadvertently called some guys ‘pretty,’ even if he had been referring to the girls.

That is why Daryl never tells Merle. They may be brothers, but Daryl doesn’t want to test their relationship. Merle was already a bigot to the highest degree, and he doesn’t want to test his brother’s tolerance by coming out of the closet. He’d probably lose Merle forever if his sexuality got out, and if their old man found out, he’d never survive. Daryl knows that if their pa knew, only one person would come out of that encounter alive.

It’s better to keep his head down and pretend interest in the girls, or not at all. Dallying around with a guy would only serve to make things worse. Maybe he’ll find someone in a few years, when the old man is dead and Merle is serving time yet again for his latest crime. It is only a matter of time. Daryl can afford to wait.

\-----

Three years later, Merle is serving five years in prison for possession, and their pa is dead, having died in a bar fight the year before. As long as Daryl doesn’t stay local, Merle shouldn’t find out what he’s been up to.

Daryl takes to driving down to Atlanta every weekend to visit the clubs and bars, duffel over his shoulder holding two sets of clothes that he only wears when he’s out. A quick shower and shave, condoms and small tube of lube in his pocket, and he’s good to go. He doesn’t bother with cologne or glitter. Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he’s going to make a big effort on his looks.

Most of the places he goes aren’t really places he feels comfortable, and he has yet to find one that really appeals to him. There are strobe lights and sparkles and thudding speakers, but all it serves is to give him a headache most of the time. Why there can’t be a nice, quiet place with country music playing, he doesn’t know.

Every once in a while, he sleeps with a guy, but most of the time he ends up going back to the hotel alone. He can never bring himself to approach someone, and the guys that do approach him aren’t usually his type. He’s never quite certain exactly what his type is, but he thinks he’d like just a normal guy. Not someone covered in glitter, not someone with muscles on his muscles, but just a good country boy.

He should just stop going to the bars and clubs, but he can’t bring himself to stop.

He’s getting ready to go down to Atlanta again for the weekend when the door slams open, and Merle barrels into his home, covered in blood.

“Merle, what the fuck?!”

“Get your stuff, little brother!” Merle shouts, disappearing into the back rooms.

“You’re supposed to be in fucking _jail_ , Merle, what the hell?” Daryl yells, shoving his Atlanta clothes under the bed. “Don’t tell me you’re on the run from the cops! Fucking hell, Merle!”

“I’m not on the fucking run from the fucking cops, they have more things to worry about than little old me,” Merle grins, coming out with a bag stuffed full of the firearms and knives that they had accumulated throughout the years. He grabs another bag and starts shoving cans of food into it, making sure to grab a manual can opener.

Daryl curses and starts shoving clothes into his newly emptied duffel, and then starts shoving Merle’s clothes into a different bag. “Then what the fuck is going on?” he demands.

“The dead are walking, little brother. Haven’t you been watching the news?”

“The fuck they are, Merle. People don’t just rise from the dead! You’re fucking high again, Merle!” Daryl yells, heading outside and tossing the bags into the back of the truck.

“If I’m high, then why the fuck does Jimmy there have his insides on the outside?”

“What?” Daryl turns around, only to freeze as he saw the kid from down the way staring at him hungrily, entrails falling out of his abdomen to pool around his feet on the ground. Jimmy lunges, only to trip as his entrails tangle up with his legs.

There is a gunshot, and Jimmy falls to the ground. “You believe me now, Darlina?”

Daryl runs back into the trailer to grab his crossbow and more supplies. They were going to need them.

At this rate, he was never going to find his normal guy.

\-----

Their first plan was to go into the woods, or head up north and into the mountains. They’re in the woods for about two days before a deer Daryl is hunting runs right into a herd of walking dead. It’s not safe in the woods, especially since all they have is a single tent and the cab of the pickup, so they head north instead.

They’re about halfway to Atlanta when they run into another group of survivors.

They’re raiding a convenience store when they hear other vehicles pull in. Daryl ducks down behind the counter, while Merle goes into the back room.

They stay down when the others come in. In another situation, they’d make themselves known, but the world is different now, and while Merle didn’t say what he’d seen when he was traveling alone, it’s enough to make them both wary of strangers.

“Grab some food and let’s go. I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”

Daryl rolls his eyes. There’s no place left that doesn’t give anyone bad feelings anymore. The floor behind the counter is stained with blood, and he’d seen a body with parts missing in one of the freezers. The store had been otherwise clear, but that didn’t mean anything.

There’s the sound of footsteps and rustling as food and other supplies are shoved into pockets and backpacks. The door opens and closes, before opening again and something is dragged into the store.

“Are we seriously going to just leave him here?”

“He’s a member of a dying breed, and we have no place for his kind. He’d only take up space. Anyone who can’t or won’t reproduce is as good as dead.”

Just as quickly as they arrive, the other survivors are gone, and Merle comes out of the back room. Daryl stands up and jumps over the counter, before kneeling next to the man that had been left to die on the floor.

Merle stomps over. “We ain’t taking him with us.”

“We can’t just leave him here, Merle!”

“Like hell we can’t,” Merle snarls. “Grab your shit, we’re leaving.”

Merle leaves the store, and Daryl is left alone with the abandoned man. Now that he takes the time to look, he sees that Merle is probably right. The man is in the tattered remains of a hospital gown, bandages wrapped tightly around his head. His eyes are open, but it doesn’t look like anyone is home. They can’t afford to take a man with brain damage with them.

There’s a single shot from within the store, and Daryl comes out, gets in the truck, and drives away.

They’re right outside Atlanta when they meet a guy named Jim. He runs right up to the truck, wrenches open the door, and jumps right in. He was lucky not to get shot in the face. He’d been heading to the quarry, but his car broke down. There are no other cars on the stretch of highway to steal, and no homes within sight.

Daryl sighs heavily, but they head to the quarry. Another group has already settled in, but they welcome them in happily. Merle enjoys having women to ogle, while Daryl just resigns himself to be resolutely single and celibate during the apocalypse. He’d thought he had it fucking bad when living people covered the world and they didn’t have to scavenge for supplies, but he was probably never going to get laid again. Fucking apocalypse.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _"Any fandom, any characters, Post-apocalyptic. You thought being queer sucked when there were six billion humans, a reasonably steady supply of food and water, and *zero* hordes of ravening undead."_


End file.
